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‘Hands off!’ The diary of Margaret Elliott

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A recent acquisition of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Division has proved a charming read: “The Diary of Margaret Elliott” (V580), a sophomore at Purdue University in 1925. Born Nov. 29, 1905 in Logansport, she spent most of her life in Lucerne in Cass County, where she still lived when she died on Aug. 22, 1974 at IU Medical in Indianapolis.

Senior yearbook photo from the 1927 Debris, Indiana Serials, ISLI 378 P985d, 1927.

Elliott, who attended with her sister Lottie, was an exceptionally engaged student both academically and socially. In addition to pledging Alphi Chi Omega, she was a member of the Philalethian Literary Society, a women’s society founded in 1877; the Y.W.C.Q; and the Purdue Girl’s Club. She speaks about classes in English, French, Psychology, Physics, History and Education. She was of the first class to have an honor roll at Purdue known as the “distinguished students,” and her name is included among the ranks.

Throughout the diary, she only ever refers to her place of residence as “the house,” but it can be assumed to be the Alphi Chi Omega sorority house. The Purdue Ladies Hall, demolished in 1929, would have still been standing at the time of her tenure, but would surely not have been referred to as a “house.” The diary documents the many social events of Greek life in Purdue in this lively period, as well as the dress and behavior – including drinking by some of her male classmates – among the students.

Photo of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority house from the 1925 Debris, Indiana Serials, ISLI 378 P985d, 1925.

Her account of college life is still in many ways relatable: staying up until 3 a.m. with boys and cramming for tests. In April she writes: “Too much high, fast, hard living!” and in August: “Oh diary, am I wicked or so terribly different from other girls that I can’t like one man alone? It seems there always must be two before I am happy.”

Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, V580.

Indeed, the date juggling – sometimes more than one in the same night – with the passionate “Tex” and reliable “Nat” make this volume a page-turner. Though the senior portrait of Margaret does not evoke that of the “New Woman” flapper ethos, she certainly was a liberated college student by modern standards – coming and going as she pleased and seemingly enjoying the company of anyone she chose. It did not appear that her place of residence had rules about having men over, or at least they weren’t heavily enforced. Purdue admitted women as of 1875 and so her presence was not have been particularly novel; however, she did not exactly embody the traits of the “ideal ‘Purdue Man’” as outlined in the 1927 Debris, Purdue’s yearbook. However, she is a great reminder that Purdue has been important to Hoosier education for more than engineering – and for more than just male education.

Seen here in her sorority group photo, she has the more quintessential flapper bob. From the 1925 Debris, Indiana Serials, ISLI 378 P985d, 1925.

The diary is a record of a young woman who was not ready to commit to a life determined by her male suitors, each of which talked about taking her back home with them. She did avoid settling down for a period even after she graduated from Purdue, only finally marrying in 1935. This ended her career as a school teacher of English and History at schools in Tipton township, including the old Walton High School, which became Tipton Township High School. She resigned from Delphi-Deer Creek Township High School in Delphi – also long ago consolidated – a month after she married Earl D. York, born on Oct. 17, 1900, from North Grove. York worked for the Foreign Sales office for Texaco, and died on Dec. 11, 1990.

Though we have no evidence of whether quitting teaching was something she did wholeheartedly, it is hard not to assume that it was at least bittersweet for her. However, there is evidence that this educated dreamer lived a full life and did some traveling, with passenger manifest showing that she took trips to Panama and England and that, like many Hoosiers, she spent time in Florida.

Diaries can be hit and miss in terms of their research value and whether they provide any real insight into the time periods they document, depending heavily on the style of the writers who penned them. Not every diary can be saved, and many of them touch on only the most salient points of a day, often serving more as a daily calendar that doesn’t offer much even for piecing together family histories. The particular diary offers much in that it traces many ups and downs of both herself and fellow students. Her account of the 1925 automobile accident that killed two of her classmates, for instance, included a newspaper clipping slipped in between the pages as well as descriptive account of the accident and subsequent funeral.

Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, V580.

Diary page and unidentified clipping, Margaret Elliott diary, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division.

Her love of literature also colors the document, as she includes numerous quotes from writers such as Tennyson, Kipling and many more relatively forgotten writers who were popular at the time, as well as prominent writers on women’s issues including Sarah Grand and Margaret Widdemer. An afternoon could be spent happily just identifying the quotes in her books, but one Honoré de Balzac quote sticks out: “Marriage is a matter of one’s whole life; love is a matter of pleasure.” It seems Margaret had both, as well as a rich internal life – a life well lived!

This post was written by Victoria Duncan, Rare Books and Manuscripts supervisor.

Butler vs. Purdue: A Thanksgiving story

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Football is as integral a part of American Thanksgiving as turkey and pumpkin pie. Indeed, both Thanksgiving as a national holiday and the game of football originated around the same time. President Ulysses S. Grant established the official holiday in 1870, a mere year after Rutgers University defeated Princeton 6-4 on Nov. 6, 1869 in what is widely considered the first match of American football ever played. The game quickly grew in popularity, particularly among American universities, and as popular trends usually do, it eventually found its way to Indiana.

From the Indiana Pamphlet Collection. ISLO 813 no. 26.

A fictionalized account of an early Indiana football game can be found in the short story “Butler vs. Purdue: A Thanksgiving story,” written and published by George S. Cottman, a prolific historian and author who ran a printing press out of his home in Irvington. The story opens in Indianapolis on Thanksgiving morning 1890 with a young woman named Esther pleading with her father to take her to a local football match between Butler University (whose campus was located in the Irvington neighborhood at the time) and Purdue University. Her father, a stern military man dubbed Colonel Cannon, initially refuses and chides his daughter’s interest in the sport. Like many other older adults at the time, he holds the notion that football is an unusually violent sport and unworthy of being associated with institutions of higher learning. With little self-awareness he declares “If I’d a boy in college… who spent his time tussling about in the mud when I was paying for the cultivation of his brains I’d cudgel him till he took to his bed. Is that what they go to college for – to break bones and mash each other flat?”

After further cajoling and some overly dramatic tears from Esther, he relents and they make their way to the YMCA athletic park, located at the time in the Arsenal Heights neighborhood, just east of downtown. The game has already started and Butler is losing to Purdue 10-0. Esther, who incidentally is also being courted by a football player from Butler, is in despair at how dominant the Purdue team seems. “What great big ugly things they are! It’s too much to expect our boys to stand against a lot of elephants!”

She is equally disgruntled with the Purdue fans who have made the long trip to Indianapolis to cheer on their team. “Hear those horrid people. I hate to see country jakes come in and try to take the town. If they love to bellow so why don’t they go out in the woods around Lafayette and do it to their hearts content.” The snub “country jakes” is a jab at Purdue’s notoriety as an agricultural school and belies a distinct snobbery at the rural-urban cultural divide which was likely a common sentiment for city-dwellers such as Esther.

In what today would seem a bit of a gendered role reversal, Esther spends much of the game explaining the sport to her befuddled but increasingly interested father. The game she describes is quite different but still recognizable to the sport in its modern form. The match consists of two 45 minute innings. Touchdowns are worth four points and conversion kicks add another two. Teams have three downs to advance the ball five yards. Colonel Cannon’s martial sensibilities are particularly delighted by offensive plays employing the flying wedge formation, which is unsurprising considering the early football tactic was based on a centuries-old military maneuver (and then quickly banned in 1894 because it caused so many injuries).

As this is a story written by an Irvington resident, it predictably ends happily for Butler. The Butlers (the nickname Bulldogs was not adopted until 1921) rally in the second inning and ultimately win the match 12-10. The Purdues (the term Boilermaker wouldn’t make an appearance until the following year in 1891) fail to get any more points on the board. Colonel Cannon has been converted to football fandom and Esther can now safely invite her beau to dinner without dooming him to her father’s archaic notions on collegiate sports.

While Esther and Colonel Cannon are fictional characters, this game really did happen and was held Nov. 27, 1890. It was the state championship game for Indiana football and extensive coverage of the match appeared in multiple Indianapolis newspapers.

Indianapolis Journal, Nov. 28, 1890. From Newspapers.com.

While 1890 was a bit too early for photographs of the event to be printed in local papers, it was deemed an important enough event by the Indianapolis News to dispatch an artist to draw illustrations for the story.

Indianapolis News Nov. 28, 1890. Images from the game-day coverage. From Hoosier State Chronicles.

Adding to the day’s drama was the fact that a rowdy post-match victory drive through the streets of Indianapolis resulted in a large wagon referred to as a “tally-ho” being overturned and seriously injuring several football revelers, though all seem to have survived the ordeal.

Football continues to be an important part of Thanksgiving in Indiana, especially for Purdue. While the school no longer plays Butler in football, their annual Oaken Bucket game against in-state rival Indiana University is usually played near Thanksgiving. The weekend following Thanksgiving is also when high schools from throughout the state converge on Indianapolis to battle for various football championships. And of course, millions of Hoosiers will tune in to watch professional football from the National Football League, a holiday tradition that dates back to the NFL’s first Thanksgiving game held in 1934.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

Dorm life

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As summer draws to a close, thousands of college students will begin their migrations to campuses throughout the state. Both Indiana University and Purdue anticipate having their largest incoming freshman classes ever with Purdue expecting over 10,000 new students and IU planning for over 9,000. Many of these students will be moving into dorms and some of those dorms have seen multiple generations of students pass under their roofs. While the basic tenants of dorm living remain the same – providing a place for students to eat, sleep and study – much has changed in dorm life over the years.

Purdue University’s Wood Hall – now part of Windsor Halls – housed female students and in the 1940s featured several unique amenities:

“Much care has been given to meeting the personal needs of the residents. The laundries are equipped with electric washers, clothes driers, stationary tubs, ironing boards and electric irons… The shampoo rooms contain convenient sprays and electric hair dryers. The sewing rooms are equipped with electric machines, cutting tables and panel mirrors for those who do their own sewing or are majoring in clothing in the School of Home Economics.”

Additionally, the dorm featured a dedicated radio room as students were not allowed radios in their own rooms.

From Residence halls for women at Purdue (ISLO 378 P985 no. 175 [1942]).

Dorms often have their own set of rules and codes of conduct and these often reflected the social norms of the time. According to a 1950s-era guide for residents of the Cary Quadrangle at Purdue – which continues to exclusively house male students – each resident had to ensure his bed was made by noon each day. Since this particular dorm featured maid service, failure to make one’s bed or to leave the room untidy would result in the maid reporting the student which could ultimately lead to disciplinary action.

Another rule from the Cary Quad guidebook set out strict dress guidelines for eating at the dining hall:

From Men’s residence halls: guide for residents (ISLO 378 P985 no. 500).

Oddly, the 1971/72 issue of Indiana University’s guidebook to dorm living contains a very specific entry on its rules for serenading which must have been a popular enough social endeavor to warrant inclusion in the guidebook:

From Your key to residence hall living (ISLO 378 Iu385 no. 212).

Students have always been encouraged to personalize the small amounts of living space allotted to them. In past eras, this often involved decorating the walls with posters and maybe having a few personal items out on display. By necessity, modern students must cram much more into their rooms. Mini refrigerators, computers, televisions and gaming systems now all compete for space.

Dorm room at Indiana State College ca. 1964. From Opportunities for you (ISLO 378 IS385 no. 38).

Dorm scenes at Indiana University, early 1970s. From Your key to residence hall living (ISLO 378 Iu385 no. 212).

Dorm room at Valparaiso University, ca. 2004. From The Beacon (ISLI 378 V211be 2003/04).

One aspect of dorm life which hasn’t changed much over the years is the tradition commonly called Move-In Day where hundreds of students haul all their personal belongings to their new home. Often chaotic, sometimes emotional, and usually requiring the extra hands of parents and other family members, Move-In Day marks the official beginning of the school year for many students.

Move-In Day at Ball State University, ca. 1980. From The Orient (ISLI 378 B187o 1981).

The Indiana State Library contains an extensive collection of materials such as yearbooks, course catalogs, promotional materials and other publications related to the many colleges and universities in the state.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

The Samara House in West Lafayette, Indiana

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There are several buildings designed by famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the state of Indiana. Possibly the best known example of a private home design is the John E. Christian home, called Samara, in West Lafayette, completed in 1956. Samara is named for the winged seeds that come from pine cones. I found a book about the Wright-designed Samara in the Indiana State Library’s Indiana Division collection titled “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Samara Winged Seeds of Indiana” by Wallace J. Rogers (ISLI 720 R731f). The forward to the book is written by John E. Christian, PhD, the home owner who worked with Wright in designing and building Samara. Christian was a professor at Purdue University, and for that reason wanted the house to be built in West Lafayette near the Purdue campus. He intended to hold gatherings of students and professors there, as well as live there with his family.

After John, his wife Kay and daughter Linda visited Taliesin, Wright’s summer home and studio, Kay decided that she wanted Wright to design a home especially for their family’s needs. However, they could not afford a house at that time. Luckily for John and Kay Christian, once Wright found out that they had more than an acre of property on which to build a house, he agreed to design their home.

Wright had begun advertising his Usonian home plans that began at $5,000. Samara was meant to be one of Wright’s Usonian designs, during the post-World War II era.  Usonian design was an idea Wright had for functional but stylish homes for middle-class customers. Several entire communities around the country were designed around the Usonian ideal.

Working with Wright was not for the faint of heart. Wright reportedly had a difficult personality and liked to dictate what types of furniture, down to the lampshades, should be included in the homes he designed. In the Rogers book, there is a glossary of furniture designed especially for Samara in the back of the book. John and Kay Christian were committed to following Wright’s directives as far as décor.

In Roger’s book, the details of the designing and building process, along with pictures of the plans and furniture are abundant. Unfortunately, though the cover is in full color, the pictures in the book are all in black and white. Samara has a website which indicates that it is in the process of being updated. However, the photographs of the house are spectacular. The furniture is colorful and also looks useful as well as comfortable. There are soaring windows and intricate woodwork for which Wright’s designs are famous. Samara is open for tours during parts of the year, even though it is a private residence.  The website indicates that the house is open for tours April through November, although by appointment.

If you are interested in other Wright-designed structures in Indiana, you may want to look at “Frank Lloyd Wright and Colleagues: Indiana Works.” The picture above is a program from the event organized by Barbara Stodola that was held July through September in 1999. The exhibition was held at the John G. Blank Center for the Arts in Michigan City.

This blog post was written by Leigh Anne Johnson, Indiana Division newspaper librarian, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana Division at 317-232-3670 or via  “Ask-A-Librarian.”